


The Fool

by tinydooms



Series: We Three Together [3]
Category: The Mummy (1999), The Mummy Series
Genre: Burgeoning Friendship, Discussion of war, Gen, Minor Character Death, Missing Scene, PTSD flashbacks, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-23
Updated: 2020-04-23
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:35:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23797786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tinydooms/pseuds/tinydooms
Summary: He was my responsibility. The words were unspoken, but O’Connell may as well have shouted. Ugh, these heroic types. Jonathan took his flask back and drank, drank to drown the memory of the Warden’s frantic race, the screams, the crack of bone shattering against stone. If he thought about it too much the other screams would begin to leak out, and the cacophony of bombs and bullets and mustard gas.
Series: We Three Together [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1714483
Comments: 28
Kudos: 92





	The Fool

**The Fool**

_Hamunaptra, October 1922_

The Warden was dead--that much was obvious. Silence filled the tomb, but the man’s shrieks rang in all their ears as the Carnahans and O’Connell stood clustered together, staring agape at the body on the floor. 

“I, uh,” Jonathan said, and swallowed. “Evie I think you’d better--”

He made a vague attempt to nudge her behind him, back towards the sarcophagus. 

“Stay there,” O’Connell finished. 

He began to edge towards the Warden’s body, gun still in hand. Jonathan swallowed against the bile rising in his throat and took a step after him. One step. Two. Three. He stopped. O’Connell kept going, but he was the professional, damn it, and they all knew the man was dead! O’Connell confirmed it anyway. 

“Dead. Looks like he broke his neck.”

“How horrible,” Evie said, her voice small. 

Jonathan retreated to her side, put an arm around her. “Come away, old mum. You don’t need to see this.”

She let him lead her back to the sarcophagus and O’Connell followed, looking grim. 

“What was he doing?” he muttered, more to himself than to Evie and Jonathan. “I’d forgotten all about him. What was he _doing_?”

“I thought you didn’t like him,” Jonathan remarked, pulling his flask from his pocket and handing it to Evie. She drank and held it out to O'Connell.

O’Connell gave him that look, the one that so plainly said he thought Jonathan was an idiot. “Doesn’t mean I wanted him dead.”

Jonathan snorted. “He tried to kill you.”

O’Connell took the flask from Evie and swigged brandy. “Yeah. Still.”

 _He was my responsibility_. The words were unspoken, but O’Connell may as well have shouted. Ugh, these heroic types. Jonathan took his flask back and drank, drank to drown the memory of the Warden’s frantic race, the screams, the crack of bone shattering against stone. If he thought about it too much the other screams would begin to leak out, and the cacophony of bombs and bullets and mustard gas. 

“Don’t go blaming yourself for his choices,” he said, waving the flask at O’Connell. “Guilt never brought anybody back from the dead.”

O’Connell turned surprised eyes on him, but it was Evie who spoke. “What do we do?”

O’Connell shifted his eyes to her and Jonathan was glad. He took another quick gulp and let insouciance settle over him once more, shoving the memories away. Evie was safe, and he was safe. That was all that really mattered.

“We’ll have to carry him up,” O’Connell said. “And, er, find a place to bury him. Maybe some of the Americans’ crew’ll know the proper words to say.”

Jonathan almost reached for his flask again. There it was, the soldier’s need to do the thing right, to farewell a fellow properly. People weren’t supposed to die on archaeological digs, not in the twentieth century. Damned stupid thing to do. And Jonathan knew that he was about to do something damned stupid, too; like a prat, like someone who cared--

“I’ll get his legs,” he said.

They carried the body between them as far as the mummification chamber and laid it down by the rope they had shimmied down. O’Connell took himself off to find the Americans, and Evie and Jonathan retreated to the far side of the chamber. They passed an uneasy quarter of an hour until their guide returned, bringing with him a long sheet of tarpaulin and the news that there was a door out of this godforsaken place, so they would be spared the indignity of trying to lever the Warden’s body out through the ceiling. Small mercies. And thank God for the tarpaulin. Jonathan felt easier once the body was covered. He took the ends and followed O’Connell back to the surface, where the sun was sinking towards the west and the bustle of a camp being set up lent the site a disquieting air of normalcy. It made Jonathan cold, how life simply marched on even in the face of violent death. They set their cargo down just outside the tomb entrance.

“Why don’t you two go back to camp?” O’Connell said. “I’ll, uh, take care of the body.”

“You can’t bury him yourself,” Jonathan said, and felt a flash of irritation. He knew that O’Connell thought he was ridiculous, and he didn’t like it. 

“You want to help?”

Jonathan huffed. “Not particularly, but I know how to see a thing to the end. It’s not my first improvised burial.”

Something flashed into O’Connell’s eyes: understanding, and a dawning realization. Good. Jonathan turned away and began the strenuous task of convincing Evie that she didn’t need to help them with this. 

They buried the Warden at sunset, outside the ruined walls of Hamunaptra on the eastern slope. Jonathan and O’Connell dug the grave in silence, tossing up shovelfuls of sandy dirt until they had a hole deep enough that no animals would dig the poor sod up. When a handful of fellahin from the Americans’ crew joined them to dig their own pits, O’Connell and Jonathan stopped and leaned on their shovels. 

“Not sure I want to know what happened there,” Jonathan remarked. 

O’Connell shook his head. “Looks like a bad day was had by all.”

Jonathan took up his shovel again and struck at the soil. “I’ve had worse.”

He could feel O’Connell’s eyes on him again, assessing him. _Let him_ , Jonathan thought. Whatever life O’Connell had led to get him here wasn’t important. He was a guide to riches and his opinion didn’t matter. Jonathan wiped sweat from his brow. He hadn’t been lying earlier, when they had held those beastly cowboys at gunpoint. He _had_ been in tighter odds than fifteen to four, and he had survived them when no one else had. It was why he drank himself to sleep most nights, which was exactly what he was going to do when they were nice and wealthy from the treasure here, if they ever found it. Still, the question, when it came, was not unwelcome. 

“Where did you serve?”

“Western Front. The Somme and Pozières,” Jonathan said bitterly. “You could call that a couple of bad months.”

“Or years,” O’Connell replied, and there was no contempt in his voice. “It was an ugly war.”

Well, if that wasn’t an understatement for the ages. For a moment the hot Egyptian sands vanished and everything was mud and blood and the screams of the dying. Jonathan closed his eyes and reached for his flask. 

“I lost all my close friends,” he said. Funny, he had never really said that to anyone before. “Buried what we could of ‘em, of course; said all the right words. I got shot in the arse a week before the Somme campaign ended and was invalided home. Best thing that ever happened to me.”

He glanced at Rick O’Connell, daring him to say something glib and American, wishing he hadn’t opened his mouth. O’Connell’s face was somber; he stabbed at the soil with his shovel. 

“Yeah, I know a lot of guys who’ll always be nineteen, too. Good men. Not one deserved it.”

“No.” Jonathan flung sand away in a wide, furious arc. “Shall we ask the fellahin how the ritual goes?”

O’Connell nodded and took himself over to the little group. He was only gone for a few minutes, but it gave Jonathan the time he needed to take another nip from his flask and gather himself. He glanced over at the Warden’s corpse, snug in its tarpaulin shroud. O’Connell had given him a look-over, but they didn’t know what had killed him. Something invisible. Jonathan shuddered. When he died, he hoped it would be fast and painless. He didn’t want to run screaming into death’s arms, clutching his head or hacking up bits of his lungs, or lying in pieces on the battlefield, screaming for his mother. He had always tried to ensure that the men he had killed died quickly, silenced by a sniper’s bullet. That they hadn’t suffered because of him. 

“They say they’ll take care of him,” O’Connell announced, breaking into Jonathan’s dark thoughts. “Since they’re Muslim, too, it’s the best way; they know the rituals. We should get back to camp.”

Jonathan nodded. They hesitated over the Warden’s corpse for a minute, in Jonathan’s case, at least, silently apologizing for his rudeness over the past few days. The walk back to camp took place in semi-darkness, both of them watching their feet. 

“I was at Gallipoli,” Rick said suddenly. “In ‘15. With the Legion. We went on to North Africa after that, mainly Algeria. It was bad fighting, but I didn’t muster out when it was over.”

Jonathan glanced at him. “Whyever not?”

O’Connell shrugged. “I didn’t have anywhere else to go. I didn’t like it, but by the end I didn’t know how _not_ to fight. I kept expecting to die, too, you know?”

“I know.” Jonathan grimaced. “One does rather forget how to be ordinary.”

“Yeah.” O’Connell sighed. He waved a hand, encompassing Hamunaptra. “This was the site of my last battle. My colonel wanted the wealth of Egypt. There were two hundred of us and I was the only one to walk away.”

Jonathan winced. “Is that how you ended up in Cairo?”

“Yeah. I grew up there, actually. It made sense to go back and play tour guide to rich foreigners.”

“Like us?”

They were almost back at camp now. Jonathan could see Evie standing beside the campfire in her black and silver Bedouin dress, fussing with something. O’Connell shook his head. 

“No.” O’Connell looked thoughtful. “You guys are different.”

Jonathan chuckled. He couldn’t help it. “Evie cares, at least, about Egyptology.”

“And you don’t?” O’Connell raised his eyebrows. 

Jonathan shrugged. “Not like I used to. I haven’t really cared for much since the War. Can’t take a damn thing seriously.”

“No shame in that.” O’Connell grimaced. “Hell, I got arrested for brawling. Got drunk and tossed a guy out a window.”

“I know, I was there,” Jonathan said. “I picked your pocket, remember?”

“I remember.” He flashed Jonathan a sideways grin. “You learn that in the trenches?”

“One needed to do something to occupy one’s mind,” Jonathan said primly. 

O’Connell snorted, but there was no contempt in it, no dislike. There hadn’t been since they started talking, Jonathan realized. And it had been _good_ to talk.

Evie had tea ready and waiting at the campfire, and had set out a pitcher of water and some cloths for them to wash with. Jonathan settled down by the fire and drank his tea. Above them, the stars were coming out, vast and eternal in the desert sky. Maybe when this dig was over they would be rich (or richer; their parents hadn’t exactly left them impoverished). Maybe Evie would finally be accepted by the Bembridge Scholars, those sanctimonious bastards. Maybe they would keep Rick O’Connell on as a friend. Who knew what the future held? Maybe it would be good. 

Author's Note: This one was inspired by [this post](https://m1ssc0mmun1cat10n.tumblr.com/post/169485630625/thefingerfuckingfemalefury-darkwoodsfae), which has haunted me ever since I first read it and totally changed how I view the character of Jonathan. In Tarot, the Fool is the everyman, and also means new beginnings and not knowing what to expect. I hope you like this story! Please let me know what you think in the comments!


End file.
